NASA issues alert for stadium sized asteroid passing earth Tuesday

KANSAS (KSNT) - The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory has issued alerts for five asteroids approaching earth. One asteroid is described as 'stadium-size' and will pass earth on Tuesday.

The asteroid named '2024ON' is approximately 950 feet in diameter, or about the size of a football stadium, NASA Solar System Ambassador Brenda Culbertson told 27 News. She said the asteroid is expected to pass 621,000 miles from earth or nearly three times farther than the moon's average distance.

The other asteroids under the watch were described as between 'airplane-size' and 'house size' with the nearest asteroid coming 326,000 miles from earth on Sept. 16. The next closest house-sized asteroid (2024 RY10) will come within 1,100,000 miles from earth.

Culbertson said the moon is 239,000 miles away from earth on average. She said the closest asteroid is about 100,000 miles further from earth and the moon.

"That's a safe distance," Culbertson said.

According to NASA, the asteroids fall under Near Earth Asteroids (NEO) and are asteroids that are larger than 460 feet in size with orbits that bring them within 4.6 million miles from earth's orbit around the sun.

According to the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, there are no known significant threats of impact for the next 100 years or more.

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